Strictly Come Arsenal …….. your chance to vote!

Now I’m sure no red blooded Arsenal supporter would admit to watching Strictly Come Dancing – but maybe the missus has it on in the background or you’ve been forced to watch it as some sort of penance. For those that claim not to have seen it, the performance of the dancers is scored from 1 to 10. At the start of the series the scores are lower but towards the end the audience go into raptures when their favourite celebrity dancer is awarded a perfect 10……. which brings me to Arsenal.

Before the Sunderland game, Arsene said that the team was performing at 99% and when interviewed after he increased it to 99.5% – albeit with that playful little twinkle he often has in his eye.

To me a perfect 100% in terms of a sporting performance is never attainable. I’d happily shoot the next sportsman who claims to have given it 110% if I could get away with it. Clearly Arsene’s 99% was his way of saying to the players you’re doing really well …. just a leeeelte bit more please. It’s his style of man management.

For me the 20 seconds that led up to the winning goal by Arshavin against Barca was a 99%, and the first 20 minutes at home against Napoli last season was a 95% …. but 99.5% against Sunderland ….. really?

So what I’d like you to do today is have a think and vote on what you think is the current level of Arsenal’s performances. You can relax because no answer will imply negativity. If you agree we’re at 99% then you are very happy with our game and if you think it’s 80% then you’re simply saying we’ve got a lot more to come!

To continue the debate perhaps you could suggest a game or a passage of play when you saw Arsenal play at 99%.

Written by De Ville’s Advocaat

Advertisements

Like this:

LikeLoading...

This entry was posted on Tuesday, October 28th, 2014 at 9:31 am and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.
You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

I voted for the 80 – 90% level, though it is more an expression of my current view than a mathematical calculation.

We are better than most teams in the Premiership, and despite our apparently poor form as assessed by some fans, or perhaps the standards they have come to expect over the years, that is still pretty darn good.

What the difference is between 80/90% and the very top mark relates to my opinion that we do not have top class players in certain positions, or too many are slipping down to the nadir of their careers.

As has been said, ad nauseum, is that we are only 2 or maybe 3 players away from irritating the 2 teams occupying the high ground of the 90/100% level. So just a leetle bit more transfer activity Arsene and we will all be rockin’ in the aisles. 🙂

Whenever I try to think of my favourite Arsenal game, the first that comes to mind is the 5-3 vs Middlesborough, with the 2 quick goals (2nd scored by Reyes while they were showing the replay of the previous goal) brought us to 4-3, after earlier being 3-1 down. It tied our unbeaten run with Forest’s then record 42 games.

I’d say that passage of play after going down 3-1, was among the best I’ve ever seen.

I don’t really know how to rate us, but I went with 80-89%, since I don’t think we’re too far off, even as I think we’re not playing well. (The Anderlecht game would be a 20%, and that was only because of the late goals)

I voted 70+ because we have yet to play a game with all our players on top form, if we get 7 playing well it is usually enough to get a result..

Shard. Love that Boro clip though It brings back bad memories. My ex-wife had booked our summer hols without checking the date our season started and we flew home the day after the game – it was the first home game I had missed for many a season and believe me she got both barrels.

I think I read it correctly. You asked what is the current level of Arsenal’s performance,so I presume this season, but I then get confused when examples are given of some excellent goals going back to Middlesborough which was years ago.

1. We are missing some key players (Koscielny, Walcott!) and some players have yet to hit form (Ramsey esp);

2. We are not yet incisive enough effensively and are more frail defensively than last year.

3. We have yet to see the impact of some players on our overall squad (Campbell, Gnabry).

Now, the good news is that we have won some games despite playing abysmally against weak teams but the bad news is that we have not won enough and that we lost against Chelsea and Dortmund…

Best performance so far this year: Half of the game against City.

Best performance ever: too hard to say

Anyways, one Walcott is back in the squad and that Ramsey hits form, we will be a totally different team offensively. I think that we are better off with playing a 4-2-1-3 rather than a 4-1-2-3 as neither Flamini nor Arteta have the abilities to play as lone HM…

I put OX in my team alongside Arteta because I believe that OX can be great as a box-to-box as he has the drive and the workrate to succeed there…Arteta is ahead of Flamini just because he is better with the ball and with Ox at his side, they ll manage to defend well.

I think perhaps Wenger’s 95.5% figure is correct. Given the current state of the squad, I doubt if there is much more to come.

Alexis, Welbeck and Cazorla have played in virtually all the Premiership games so far, plus Internationals, Champions League and the Capital One Cup. And, in the case of the latter two, it shows.

Wilshere isn’t fully fit, Ramsey looks well off his best. The one player who looks near to his top form is Oxlade-Chamberlain.

The pick-and-miss-match defence are just about coping.
When Walcott gets back things will improve, his pace will liven things up. Wenger just has to make use of what quality there is on the bench, give Welbeck and Cazorla a rest by bringing in either Podolski or Campbell and play Rosicky.

Yet more changes in the defence are inevitable, with again Gibbs injured, Monreal must move to left-back, Chambers to centre-back and Bellerin start at right-back. Of that back four, the one player I fear for is Callum Chambers, not only is he constantly swapping from full-back to centre-back but he’s at risk of burn-out from the number of games he’s having to play.

Nice one, the De Ville or his (her?) Advocaat. 😛 I voted 70-79%. I think we are improving game on game, marginally at the moment, but I believe we are.

99% would be us at our sublime best, and that too only during a specific passage of play. Consistently over a series of games, the best we can do is I think about 90%. I believe we can get there in about 10 games.

In the mean time, there is the small matter of ManUre, Dortmund and Soton. All three at home, so I am hopeful we can negotiate these with aplomb.

Compared to how we played last year, I’d say we’re playing at about 70%. Considering the squad additions, I believe we could be playing way better than we’re currently are. I think when Theo and Özil return, well be able to play at 99% for longer periods like last season.

RA
You’ve got the whole gist of the poll round your neck.
The higher the assessment of how well we’re playing, the more “stockings on” you are.
Just look at Norfolk’s answer – this is as good as it gets for him.

I’m definitely a “stockings nearly off and dangling around the ankles” kind of chap, hence I can see things improving tremendously.
Any better?

I suspect your problems are family illness related, arnie, and some years ago when both my mother and father passed quite close together – I set out travelling all over the States with no destination in mind.

just rode the rails and met people and one day I was OK again.

Tell the truth I miss those days – there is something about bumming a ride in a freight car – and not caring where it was going. Tricky tho’. 🙂

I would like to point out that my original analogy was stockings and not tights and this is the preferred terminology – not only because stockings can be removed individually but also because they can be fishnet, attached to suspenders and standing in high heels 😕

But it worries me that Rasp wears knickers – I don’t known what Big Bertha would make of it if I told her that I was swopping my chunky long-johns for flimsy women’s apparel – mind it would have to be some solid sized woman. 🙂

I don’t know who started all this knickers business, but he deserves to be shot. Now I have had to ‘phone BB to see if she will have me back – well on a short-term basis (not that I have problem with my terms, OK?)

And she said “f*** off and don’t play with my f****** kn***** and f****** suspend***, you f****** sh** f**** bas****.”

Evening all, A fairly strange post Advocaat at this stage of the season. Wenger i believe is trying out his Psychology or kidology, perhaps a better word, 99.5% has left me speechless or almost.

Now i am one who does watch Strictly, why i watch it i don’t know i know its fixed and as far as a competition it is a joke. A fat woman who hasn’t got leg action foot action and looks like a blown up doll, gets though. A gay Pigeon toed clown who moves like he has s–t himself, also through, a Scottish woman without any coordination with straight legs and flat feet also through, while a Manley rugby player who has improved every week and who is having a relationship with his partner is voted off by so called experts, do me a favour experts my eye. Fiddle fiddle fiddle.

Arsenal at present abysmal, Passing, individual, and teamwork, only one word describes this spell of play abysmal.

90% luck at the moment, draws that should have been losses , How does Wenger get 99.5% when we struggle in every game.

I don’t even give the invincible’s 99.5% and they did something no body living has ever seen before, in my mind they want to walk before they can run, just for that i give them 60% as they are 5th or 6th and there are a lot behind them, but no more until they can string a couple of games of reasonable football.

oh dear, the vote has shown that the majority think the current level of performance is below 60%. I must be a positivista for thinking it was between 60-70%……… there you go Transpant man, I’m in your camp…. and I emphasize CAMP ha ha

arnie. It is purely a question of taste – of which I have just the bare modicum.

I spent a long, long night at a Ravi Shankar concert, it felt endless. Stupidly I went to see him a second time having listened to more India music, only to discover that my first impressions were correct. Brilliant musician, lovely man but dull concert.

But credit where credit is due I stayed to the end which is more than can be said when forced by Mrs Raddy to see UB40 and on another occasion Simply Red.

That vid of Cantana shows something that is really worrying in football today. After he nearly broke another players leg, he has no concern for the player, all he’s concerned with is what the ref will do. You see it too often these days and I think it’s a sad indictment of the game.

How is your brother.? Any gruesome stories?
Arnie – I’m in Poland. Played your clip and was shouted at to turn that noise off. I think it’s in your genes, you have to be Indian to fully appreciate it. A bit like jellied pigs’ trotters – polish delicacy 🙂 or tripe soup, take your pick

Everest rocks? Small fingernail size grey things.
Can you imagine, a Sherpa escorting some mountaineer down from the summit, along the worlds highest and most treacherous ridge, only ten minutes fro the top and Sherpa saying “hang on a mo., Didit Major wants me to get my ice axe out and grab a few pockets of rock chips. Should only take 20 minutes’ worth of our oxygen up here in the death zone”

If everyone of the loonies who pay so much to summit Everest took some chippings from the top it would eventually lead to it being the second highest mountain and thus devalue their ill-gotten gains. 😀

Anyway, Chas, why climb Mt Everest or K2 to get some rock chipping? – technically, those mountains with bases deep in the sea are the tallest (OK so that is not the highest, in above sea level terms) 🙂 so just pop over to the pacific and have a gentle stroll and voila, Mt Kea will give you a nice chipping and a good sun tan. 🙂

Just looking at the mountain comparison and there seems to be a bit of a discrepancy on Mount Kea. It says total height 33,465 ft, and then 13793 ft above sea level and then 18000 ft below sea level. Somehow, 1672 ft has gone missing?